Price of help from Iran is too high

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:

CAN Iran help us bail out of Iraq? Maybe - but we'd better take a hard look at the price.

The idea has reportedly been floated via a draft report to the Iraq Study Group (headed by former Secretary of State James Baker), which calls for a "dialogue" with Iran as well as Syria. Along the same lines, British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently said Iran could be a "partner" with the West if it did not develop a bomb.

Presumably, we'd ask Iran to help stabilize the situation in Iraq, curb the Shiite militias and encourage the Iraqi government to make sufficient concessions to the Sunnis to end or at least reduce the violence.

Would it work? It could. Iran certainly has sought to arm and enflame the Shiites in Iraq. Maybe the mullahs can rein in their proxies, and let us withdraw in dignity - not holding onto the skids of the helicopter as it lifts off our embassy this time.

But why would they play ball with Washington at the same time that Bush is threatening sanctions explicitly and a military strike implicitly if Iran proceeds to develop nuclear weapons? No chance.

...

In short, we can only get Iran's help on Iraq if we let Tehran get the bomb.

Yet, with nukes, Iran gains the leverage to force Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and all the region's oil producers to move in its orbit. The Middle East will become an Iranian sphere of influence.

Such an under-the-table deal would amount to a total sellout of Israel and Saudi Arabia and America's other Arab allies.

...
One of the problems with the Iraq Study Group's leaked list of options is that they invite this type of speculation. Bake is too smart to go for the deal Iran wants. I suspect that the Iran move is part of the preparation for stronger moves against Iran, not weaker. In some ways it is like the prewar dance in the UN with Iraq. We are exhausting the diplomatic alternatives. There is clearly nothing in Bush's rhetoric that suggest he has changed his mind about the core issues of Iran and nuclear weapons or in abandoning Iraq.

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